Returning to East Africa via India: On M. G. Vassanji’s \u3cem\u3eAnd Home Was Kariakoo\u3c/em\u3e

In his article “Returning to East Africa via India,” Shizen Ozawa examines how M. G. Vassanji further develops his diasporic aesthetics in his latest travel book/ memoir And Home Was Kariakoo: A Memoir of East Africa (2014) from two perspectives. First, the essay explores some possible influences of his earlier travelogue A Place Within: Rediscovering India (2008). It seems partly because of his deepening relationship with his land of ancestral origin that in And, Vassanji emphasizes the cross-continental connections between East Africa and India more strongly than in his earlier works. Especially, he characterizes the very presence of Asian Africans as testimony to the enduring relationship between the two regions in spite of the post-colonial turbulence they had gone through. Second, my article examines how Vassanji at the same time affirms his “African” identity. Describing East Africa as a place to return to, he foregrounds his strong attachment to it. Moreover, he highlights the emergence of a racially inclusive society in which Asian Africans can feel a genuine sense of belonging. By doing so, Vassanji widens the corpus of an Asian African literature and at the same time brings a new phase in his own diasporic writing

On Naipaul\u27s Cultural Positions in The Middle Passage

In his article On Naipaul\u27s Cultural Positions in The Middle Passage Shizen Ozawa discusses V.S. Naipaul\u27s first travel writing. An account of his returning journey to the five Caribbean colonial societies, The Middle Passage constitutes a major turning point in Naipaul\u27s long literary career. Whereas his earlier novels depict his homeland of Trinidad ironically, although with a certain warmth and sympathy, from The Middle Passage on the world depicted both in his fictions and non-fictions turns bleaker. Correspondingly, his authorial persona changes from that of a West Indian writer to a controversial chronicler of chaotic postcolonial conditions. Ozawa analyses how Naipaul positions himself in relation to the Caribbean societies he describes and demonstrates that Naipaul characterizes himself strategically as a cultural insider in some passages and as an outsider in others. Naipaul\u27s frequent references to Victorian metropolitan travelers are also discussed in terms of the writer\u27s cultural affiliations

Returnees' Predicaments: On George Lamming' s Of Age and Innocence and Season of Adventure

Society for Caribbean Studies補正完畢國際Leicester, UKGB

“With this past before you, all around you”: On the Transformation of Identities in M. G. Vassanji’s No New Land

[[abstract]]This essay analyses how M. G. Vassanji's second novel No New Land (1991), which thematises how Tanzanians of Indian origin emigrate to Canada in the nineteen-seventies and seek to build their new life there, explores the effects of diasporic double dislocation. It considers how the novel's thematisation of diasporic double dislocation illuminates the possibilities and limitations of cross-cultural dynamics. For the purpose, it first examines how the characters identify themselves with East Africa and how the drastic changes caused by decolonisation lead to their sense of diasporic dislocation. It then analyses how their new life in Canada makes them feel further alienated and how they seek to cope with this additional sense of dislocation. Next, the essay considers how Vassanji explores another dimension of diasporic dislocation by making some characters seek to re-define their cultural and communal identity. It concludes by examining the ambivalence of the novel's conclusion in light of Vassanji's own oscillation concerning his cultural position as a postcolonial writer. The novel's ending in which communal unity eventually stifles individual freedom, the essay concludes, reflects the writer's increasing belief in the possibilities of cross-cultural transformation.[[notice]]補正完

“From a Traveller to a Dweller?: On Pico Iyer’s Writing on Japan.”

The purpose of this paper is to examine ethical implications of Pico Iyer’s representations of Japan. Iyer has been highly evaluated as a travel writer with a cosmopolitan sensitivity, who offers insightful observations on the increasingly globalising world. Nevertheless, his version of cosmopolitanism, particularly the alleged neglect of his own privileged position as a global traveller, has been also questioned by some scholars on travel writing. Bearing such a controversy in mind, my paper examines Iyer’s descriptions of Japan, particularly those in his recent travel book/ memoir Autumn Light: Japan’s Season of Fire and Farewells (2019). Iyer’s earlier travel books that established his reputation, Video Night in Kathmandu: And Other Reports from the Not-So-Far East (1988) and The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home (2000), present Japan as a non-Western country that successfully negotiates globalisation while retaining its traditional culture. At the same time, he highlights his being based in Japan as credentials as a cosmopolitan traveller who feels at home anywhere without geo-cultural roots. Autumn Light, in contrast, thematises an aging Japanese society as well as his experience as a dweller rather than a traveller. Examining how the foregrounding of dwelling enables Iyer to characterise himself as a long-term observer of the aging society, my paper considers the extent to which Autumn Light complicates one of the central ethical issues in travel writing, namely the problem of representing the cultural Other.補正完畢國內London, UKTW

Representing Empire: An Interpretation of ‘From Tideway to Tideway’

[[sponsorship]]Magdalene and Trinity Colleges, Cambridge University[[notice]]缺頁數[[conferencetype]]國際[[conferencedate]]20010905~20010907[[iscallforpapers]]Y[[conferencelocation]]Cambridge, Englan

A lesson of Being Observed: On Amitav Ghosh’s In An Antique Land

[[sponsorship]]Woodbrooke College, University of Birmingham[[notice]]缺頁數[[conferencetype]]國際[[conferencedate]]20040831~20040903[[iscallforpapers]]Y[[conferencelocation]]Birmingham , United Kingdo

Looking for the Roots: On M. G. Vassanji’s A Place Within: Rediscovering India.

[[sponsorship]]Georgetown University[[notice]]缺頁數[[conferencetype]]國際[[conferencedate]]20120330~20120402[[iscallforpapers]]Y[[conferencelocation]]Washington, D.C., US

Returning to East Africa via India: On M. G. Vassanji’s And Home Was Kariakoo

[[abstract]]In his article “Returning to East Africa via India,” Shizen Ozawa examines how M. G. Vassanji further develops his diasporic aesthetics in his latest travel book/ memoir And Home Was Kariakoo: A Memoir of East Africa (2014) from two perspectives. First, the essay explores some possible influences of his earlier travelogue A Place Within: Rediscovering India (2008). It seems partly because of his deepening relationship with his land of ancestral origin that in And, Vassanji emphasizes the cross-continental connections between East Africa and India more strongly than in his earlier works. Especially, he characterizes the very presence of Asian Africans as testimony to the enduring relationship between the two regions in spite of the post-colonial turbulence they had gone through. Second, my article examines how Vassanji at the same time affirms his “African” identity. Describing East Africa as a place to return to, he foregrounds his strong attachment to it. Moreover, he highlights the emergence of a racially inclusive society in which Asian Africans can feel a genuine sense of belonging. By doing so, Vassanji widens the corpus of an Asian African literature and at the same time brings a new phase in his own diasporic writing.[[notice]]補正完

Not Feeling at Home at ‘Home:’ On Rudyard Kipling’s Works of the Early Eighteen-Nineties

[[sponsorship]]Université de Bretagne Occidentale[[notice]]缺頁數[[conferencetype]]國際[[conferencedate]]20000706~20000708[[iscallforpapers]]Y[[conferencelocation]]Brest, Franc